Tuesday, December 9, 2008

T-Shirt Update...

It is a lot more difficult to write when things are good...But this is a good thing.

T-Shirt Update - 111 shirts have been ordered! Holy Crap. This means that we have raised about $3000. Holy Crap. Thanks to all of you for this! I am going to be personally involved with the development of the Resource Rooms at the Cancer Center and they are definitely going to make a significant change - and all the people that have purchased a shirt have helped me help them. Thank you Thank you Thank you. I will continue to update everyone regarding these rooms.

By The Way - Never too late to order a shirt - but you won't get it until after Christmas.

I met with a few people from the Cancer Center and Shannon from Working Environments today regarding the Resource Rooms. It went very well and the rooms should work out great. I was most impressed with the amount of research that they have put into determining what the rooms should have. They did a tour at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto to see their resource rooms. PMH has a resource room for each disease site, which means that they have 23 resource rooms. WOW. 23. Some of the rooms have fire places and leather couches - sounds really nice. Windsor's won't be the same...but hopefully we can get them 'close'.

They are going to put in a computer, desk, chairs, phone, book shelves, pamphlet holder and a display board. Also part of the project is designing a website, which is actually the bulk of the cost - surprisingly very expensive. The overall budget is not very big so they are looking for any and all help. I told them about the T-shirts that I have been selling and that I would like to put the money towards these rooms.

Surprisingly, the one thing they are not putting in (for now) are printers. This boggles me. They have identified it as a need but are not able to. Apparently, there are problems with controlling what people print, keeping the paper stocked and IT issues. I see this as an absolute necessity. If you go to a good website to read about your specific cancer...there is not just a few pages...but dozens of pages. I think that they should be able to print and take the information home. They can't sit and read for hours and take notes...this seems ridiculous to me. They were happy to hear me say this as I am the first cancer patient to give them any feedback. One of the things that I have offered to do is write an opinion email regarding what I thought the perfect resource room would have.

If anyone has any ideas of how to help with the resource room, please let me know.

Isabella

My Story...

I was diagnosed with Follicular Non Hodgkins Lymphoma on September 25, 2008 - the day after our beautiful baby Isabella was born. This blog is meant to document my journey and as a means of keeping friends and family updated. Please feel free to send me a message by posting a comment or you can send me an email at: caseylibero@yahoo.ca